1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mining technology and more particularly to environmentally safe mineral processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, minerals in ore bodies can be extracted using environmentally unsafe techniques. Such a technique is the cyanide leaching. Expensive and still risky, lined environmental pits have to be designed and constructed in order to attempt to catch and hold the toxic chemicals, and prevent them from leaking into the ground water. Monitor wells have to be drilled and continuous monitoring have to be performed by highly trained staff. Often, the liner of the environmental pits breaks and the dangerous chemicals infiltrate and compromise the ground water.
Another technique currently used to extract minerals from ores is the flotation technique. This technique is also expensive and environmentally unsafe. Furthermore, these existing mineral processing techniques require the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which means that, even if assuming that these techniques will be ultimately approved, which is not always the case, additional expenditures of money and time have to be incurred by an interested party. In fact, gold mines are closed down and can't open due to the fact that cyanide leaching is no longer allowed. Moreover, low grade ore bodies are too expensive to process using these techniques.
The problems and the associated solutions presented in this section could be or could have been pursued, but they are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches presented in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their presence in this section of the application.